Making exuberant use of the oversize format, Riddell's illustrations include spot illustrations, dramatic full-page and full-spread scenes and a detailed cutaway view of the ship. While he does not romanticize piracy, the author displays a keen eye for the sort of gorier details that young buccaneers will relish, e.g., the primitive surgery performed by the ship's carpenter. With seeming effortlessness, Platt weaves vast quantities of nautical information into a text as lively as it is absorbing ('In pirates' slang there are one hundred words for `drunk' and just one for `sober' '). Jake and his shipmates take up with their captors, and there are adventures aplenty, including a mermaid sighting, a storm, a raid on a Spanish camp and an eventual reunion with Will. The tables are turned, however, when pirates capture the ship and abandon Captain Nick on an island.

Young Jake's excitement dims when wicked Captain Nick exacts a cruel penalty for clumsiness (Jake accidentally drops a bucket overboard), flogging his Uncle Will in Jake's stead and setting him adrift. Set in 1716, the tale unfolds through the diary entries of a nine-year-old North Carolina lad who goes to sea with his uncle. The duo behind Castle Diary returns with a swashbuckling sortie into pirate waters.

'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. Historically accurate illustrations of the ship and crew, a map of Jake’s travels, and a detailed glossary and index vividly reveal the fascinating-and harsh-life of a pirate in the eighteenth century. From 'mermaids' to monsterlike whales, terrible storms to dead calms, maroonings to pirate raids, Jake’s diary records everything a reader could want to know about life under the pirate code. But the real excitement begins when pirates capture the ship-and Jake finds himself embarking on a new life on the wrong side of the law. Discover through Jake’s own words the thrills and perils of a seafar-ing life as he explores the good ship Greyhound, meets fearsome Captain Nick, and becomes a carpenter’s apprentice. Learn what life was really like on a pirate ship in 1716 as you read PIRATE DIARY, nine-year-old Jake Carpenter’s journal of adventure on the high seas. Adventure! History! Pirate Diary reveals life on the high seas in the eighteenth century-through the eyes of a nine-year-old boy.

Pirate Diary by Richard Platt